Hi everyone, Well, I'm still alive and dry. I got home yesterday before all this latest rain started. The same thing happened the other day. But last night was much worse that a few days age!!!!!! At 09:03 AM 06/07/01 -0500, you wrote: > Did you float away with all the rain? I wish some of that had made it > to here. I hope you are O.K. What happened is supposedly the worst flooding Houston has ever seen. There are areas which had over 28" of rain in the last 24 hrs. There are homes in certain areas with water up to the roof line and the residents on top of the roof. Others have 2-3 feet and more in their homes. I've heard estimates of 10's of thousands of people flooded out of their homes and apartments. As I type this, there are some helicopter rescues going on. I also heard that there was a pregnant woman rescued from the roof of her house by a Coast Guard helicopter. She was already having contractions about 4 minutes apart! The access road where I exit to get home was/is flooded. I just went across the street to a convenience store to get some coffee and I noticed that the access road onto Hwy. 59 was blocked by a police car, so there must be some flooding ahead. I live just a little bit outside the Loop and I've heard that where Hwy. 59 crosses under Loop 610, there's pretty bad flooding. Thankfully, the area where I live is evidently not subject to flooding. I had no more water in front of my apt. than I would normally have just during a heavy, normal rain. Thankfully, this is happening on a Saturday rather than a normal workday, or the traffic situation would be tremendously worse than it is now. Even Metro (the bus system) has cancelled ALL of their bus service for today. The Medical Center with all those hospitals has even had some flooding problems. Most have not been able to give any emergency care because the vehicles could not get there. I just heard that a new CAT Lab built within the last year was totally under water in Memorial Hermann Hospital. There have been power losses, even of their backup systems. Hospitals are even starting to try and transfer some people to other locations. Even out of town. With those power losses, I just heard that in some situations, CPR is having to be given to patients because of the loss of the backup generators, just to try and keep them alive. Families that are there are even being asked to help do that. Many people just can't get there, so staff that got trapped there are having to work double, even triple, shifts. M.D. Anderson has just asked one of the TV stations to use their helicopter to fly to one of the airports to pick up some bone marrow that is needed for an immediate marrow transplant operation for a cancer patient. M.D. Anderson and Texas Children's Hospital are the only two in the Medical Center that are still open because of all the flooding. There are about 30 hospitals in and around Houston and 8 are closed, mostly in the Medical Center. There's a section of I-10 inside Loop-610 that flooded so deep there were about a dozen or so 18-wheelers that were almost totally submerged. They were already stopped because of high water and all of a sudden the water started rising so fast, and was moving so swiftly, that they ended up pointed in all kinds of directions. The drivers had to swim out to get to the banks. Even loads of app. 42,000 - 44,000 lbs. weren't able to withstand the force of the water! Thankfully, they've been able to determine that evidently none were loaded with any hazardous material. Right now, they're estimating that in that same area, there might be as many as 40-50 cars totally submerged. Not even visible! Certain areas had water so high it was almost touching overhead roads going across the Interstate! One couple was trapped and left their car with the husband holding their 7-mo. old baby over his head to escape the water, about chest deep on him. On the news, he looked like he was at least 6' tall, maybe more. Of course, there are cars abandoned (temporarily) all over the metropolitan area. Relatively early last night, I-45, heading toward Dallas, was totally shut down in both directions around Conroe, a town about 45 mi. or so north of Houston. Sections of most of the major highways are closed down and even IF you're able to get onto one, you probably won't be able to get off because of flooding at most of the feeder roads. So you'll be trapped. There are still hundreds out there who are still trying to get home from work, clubs, whatever, from yesterday! People are getting trapped on the highways because they can't get off, then some turn around and try to go back the wrong way on the same road they're on. It's amazing that there haven't been any serious accidents reported, just because of this. I wish I had the equipment to have taped some of the film I saw on TV during the night, scan it and then post it. Just unbelievable. With a population of app. 4 million people in the metropolitan area, you can just imagine how many people are directly affected. Most flights out of both airports cannot get in or out. The crews can't either. The entire University of Houston System has been closed. There was supposed to have been a major Texas Music Festival orchestra concert tonight, but I'm pretty sure it'll be cancelled. Or at least postponed. So, since I no longer have a big van, just a Taurus, I'm not even going to try to go out for breakfast and coffee. I made a pot and will probably be here at the apt. all day. :-) Amazingly though, there have been no known deaths attributed to the floods. But can you imagine the (probably) billions of dollars in damages to homes, businesses, etc. I wonder how many pianos will also be a total loss? Quite a lot, I imagine. Sorry if some of this post seems kind of scattered. I'm just writing things as I remember about them from being up most of the night watching the TV reports, plus what I hear while typing this. The major stations stayed on all night reporting about the floods. Most had live reports from many areas around town. I've just heard that the Mayor has requested that the Governor declare a state of emergency. The 911 system has just been overwhelmed with calls, with a request by the mayor not to call that number at all unless it is really, truly an emergency. All of the other emergency services are in about the same "overwhelmed" state. There are canoes and boats of various kind out working. Even some air boats have been put out to help rescue people. Some of these areas are probably going to take several days to drain off and return to any semblance of normality. Even if we "don't" get any more rain and right now, there is another 10" predicted for today/tonight. Well, this has gotten too long, so I'll stop for now. Hope everything is well with all of you. Love, Avery
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